


I Won't Burn Long

by metrophobic



Series: SP Drabble Bombs [3]
Category: South Park
Genre: Coming Out, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, High School, M/M, Marijuana, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metrophobic/pseuds/metrophobic
Summary: Craig reflects on the beginning of his relationship with Tweek in 10th grade, long before everything started going to shit. (Tweeker Nation-verse, but can be read stand-alone.)Written for the May 2018 Drabble Bomb - Day 4: Memory.





	I Won't Burn Long

“Hey.”

Craig looked up from his half-eaten sandwich, which he’d mostly just been staring at. It took him a second to recognize the rugged blond seated across from him. But the look in his hazel eyes was one of recognition, not the dull confusion Craig encountered earlier that day, with someone else from his past. It still made him want to cringe, how awkward their exchange had gone.

_“Tweek.”_

_“Uh… huh? What?”_

_“It’s me, uh. It’s Craig.”_

_“I don’t know you!”_

“Craig Tucker, right?” Craig nodded mutely. “No fuckin’ way, man. It’s Kenny!”

By then, it had already clicked in Craig’s mind who he was. “Yeah,” he replied.

“Wow, you haven’t changed at all.” Kenny chuckled good-naturedly. “Sorry about Tweek. He’s, uh, he’s not all _there_ upstairs. You know?” He made a vague gesture toward his own head, as if this would clarify what he meant. Craig already knew, anyway.

“Yeah,” he said again.

“Pretty crazy shit, when we were little kids. Can’t believe we ended up in the same high school. How’re the guys?”

“They’re fine, I guess,” Craig shrugged. “They all moved. We just text sometimes.” _They_ really just meant Jimmy. Everyone else fell through the cracks long ago. Including—and especially—Tweek.

“Look,” Kenny started, like he really wanted to say something profound, but somewhere between his mouth and brain it got lost in translation. He trailed off and scratched at the stubble on his chin. He’d gotten rather handsome, and Craig found himself kind of really loathing him for it. _He_ was just average. Plain, forgettable. Just a miserable emo slouch in a beat-up hoodie that he always forgot to wash.

Craig didn’t know what else to say to him, so he just swallowed a few gulps of his soda. Kenny reached out and patted him on the arm. Craig frowned and jerked it back.

“Come hang out with us,” he said. “Like after school.”

“‘Us’?”

“Me and Tweek,” Kenny clarified. “And maybe some of our other friends. We usually just get baked and bum around.”

He hadn’t been lying. But what Kenny neglected to mention was that it was Tweek’s house they’d end up in. Or, more precisely, his backyard. Tweek didn’t say much to Craig when they all met up outside of school, Craig having walked up with his hands shoved in his pockets. It hadn’t been just the three of them; there was some other asshole Craig couldn’t even remember for the life of him. Some hipster douchebag with blue hair. At first, with the way he kept hugging up on Tweek, Craig thought they were together.

But after they got back to Tweek’s place, he started shrugging him off. And the sick lurch in Craig’s belly relented, just a little.

They passed the peace pipe around and around and Tweek was engrossed in his latest art project. It was some odd-looking sculpture made out of wire hangers, and pieces of aluminium, and wine corks? And other strange bits of metal and glass. Anyone else and Craig probably would have thought it was a pile of garbage—especially since that’s what it was, literally—but Tweek made it interesting. Even though Craig didn’t know anything about art, he was enraptured by the way Tweek worked with his hands, twisting and sculpting and building. It was like he’d taken all the weirdness Craig remembered in him, and found a new way to channel it.

He was so creative, and driven, and beautiful, and still so _weird_ —it was like they were on different planets entirely. Which was why Craig was utterly thrown out of his element when Tweek approached him at his locker the following day, and apologized, and would Craig want to see a movie with him that weekend, “or something?” He was twisting his hands together when he asked him and Craig couldn’t stop looking at them.

Nothing good was playing anyway, so they just ended up walking around downtown, until the sun went down and even beyond that. “I, um, I don’t remember a lot,” Tweek had admitted. “I know we lived in a weird small town but, it’s all gone to me now. M-my parents, they won’t tell me anything, either.”

Craig, stupidly, told Tweek about their dumb little romance in fourth grade. That it ended when he moved away. Tweek’s first reaction was to laugh at him. Then he seemed to feel guilty for it, and he apologized.

It was kind of funny, though, when you’d put it into perspective. But if they were fated somehow, it was a cruel fate, because Kenny got to be the one to continue growing up with Tweek. Kenny got to know him and live through his darker moments with him, while Craig had been left in the dust. They were practically inseparable. Apart from the times that Craig managed to hang out with him on his own, they always came as a set. Always. The moments alone with him had been magical, otherworldly even, but Craig still left their encounters feeling sad and misaligned. Like something was always trapped between them, something he couldn’t dig his way past, even when they were alone together.

“Holy shit,” Kenny said when Craig finally asked him, one day, around two months later, if they were fucking. It made him laugh, but there was something bitter around the edges there, something that Kenny was clearly trying to hide but didn’t quite manage to pull the veil on all the way. “Uh, no. No way in Hell.”

Craig had been building himself up for what he thought was the truth, but Kenny’s denial completely threw him off-guard. So off-guard, that it barely registered at first, when Kenny also added, “he likes _you,_ you fucking bumpkin.”

“No he doesn’t,” Craig said. They were getting to know each other, but it was strictly on a platonic basis. Craig already knew he’d been thrust into the friend zone. He was fine with it.

Wasn’t he?

“You’re an idiot,” Kenny said, fondly, and patted him on the back. “See you later.”

The following Friday evening, when they were sitting on Tweek’s roof together—directly on the roof, no chairs, and the shingles were rough against Craig’s ass but he didn’t care—and passing a joint back and forth, Tweek asked him. “Craig,” he blurted out, in the middle of some unrelated conversation, which Craig wouldn’t be able to remember even if he wanted to. “You know I’m gay, right?” He kept his gaze firmly on the ground when he said it.

 _I told you about fourth grade, stupid,_ Craig thought, but his tongue went dry in his mouth. He nodded slowly.

“I don’t want you to think I’m like, trying to come onto you, or anything,” Tweek spilled out. “I just, I-I really like hanging out with you, I feel like you totally get me and—”

Whatever he was trying to say, he didn’t get to finish, because Craig had kissed him. It was careful, and slow, and he kept his lips closed—just in case Tweek didn’t want him there—but as soon as they touched, he immediately felt buzzed in a way that not even the weed could do to him, and then he knew what they meant by that stupid cliche about electricity. Tweek touched his hand.

“I’m gay, too,” said Craig. “I thought you knew that.” Tweek rapidly shook his head. His eyes were wide, like this really was news to him.

“I’m really bad at this,” he said. Craig wasn’t sure what _this_ meant, until Tweek took his hand and squeezed it tight. Then it was _he_ who initiated the next kiss, but he wasn’t chaste and shy about it like Craig had been. Craig felt his tongue on his lips, and he realized with a start that this was _it,_ and he had no clue what the Hell he was doing but he kissed back open-mouthed, anyway. “I like you,” Tweek whispered, sort of, but it really just sounded like his normal voice—only more harsh and rasping. A confession that he didn’t know how to keep secret any longer. Craig felt like he was floating. He didn’t want to come down from that high, or that roof, ever again.

“Me too,” he replied. “Are we going out now?”

“I… I want to,” Tweek said quickly. “I really want to. Can we?”

“Yeah.” Tweek was leaning up against his shoulder and Craig realized, he was actually pretty bad at this too, but he just wanted to touch him as much as possible, and never let go. He smoothed his fingers through Tweek’s hair and pressed an awkward kiss to his temple.

 

* * *

 

It seemed like lately, more and more, Craig found himself dissolving into memories like these instead of doing the practical thing and focusing on improving the present. But there was only so much one could do, when reality broke apart little by little each day, and even dreams wouldn’t be enough to sustain them.


End file.
